Tag: Runs

In today’s highly inter-interconnected world, it is commonplace to travel frequently, whether it is for work or vacation.

But because you have to go on a trip, this is not an excuse to pig out, enjoy your destination city, and simply leave your fitness routine at home in the process.

So then, here are some tips on how to maintain your fitness routine when you embark on your next trip.

Pack in workout gear

If you pack some workout gear into your luggage, you will be able to do a workout, regardless of whether there is a gym at the hotel you are based at.

For instance, running clothes and shoes, skipping ropes and resistance bands will not take too much extra space in your luggage, and are there if you need to fit in a quick workout during your day.

And with your workout shoes in your luggage, this also serves as a reminder to you to get moving and get that workout in when you reach your destination city and open your luggage up.

Exercise before the day starts

It may be hard to get out of bed after a late night with colleagues, but sometimes this may be the only time that you have during the day to get your workout in. So try and pull yourself out of bed just half an hour early to say, run on the gym treadmill.

If there is no gym in your hotel though, then you can just exercise in your hotel room. There are so many exercises that you can do without leaving your room, such as bodyweight squats and lunges, burpees, mountain climbers and so on, and all of them will work up a good sweat after just 10 to 15 minutes when done correctly.

Wear a fitness tracker

Having a fitness tracker on will make you more aware if you have not gotten your workout in during the course of the day, and you may find yourself more eager to get in that run before the end of the day due to this. As well, when you are exploring your destination city and what it has to offer, a tracker around your wrist, is also a good way to track how many steps you are taking throughout the course of the day.

Attend Fitness Classes

Sometimes it may be good to check out what are the exciting new fitness classes in your destination, perhaps by asking your hotel concierge what they have to offer, or if there are any gyms around that you can check out on a guest pass.

In addition to getting your workout in, this may also be a great way to try out different types of workouts that you usually do not do back at home.

Conclusion

After reading through this article, I hope that these tips have inspired you to keep up your exercise regime when you are travelling, in your bid to stay healthy and fit.

About the author:

Priscilla Chew is the winner of Best Health & Wellness Blog at the 2015 Singapore Blog Awards. Pris is Astavita’s sports ambassador. She attributes her stamina to cope with her running lifestyle with the help of Astavita’s Sports. She hopes her passion for running and sports will inspire other people to exercise on a regular basis for fitness and health. You may follow her on Instagram: prisgooner

If you are grappling with trying to lose weight, you are not alone. In fact, according to statistics by the World Health Organisation, worldwide obesity has trebled since 1975. As of 2016, more than 1.9 million adults around the world are overweight and out of these, 650 million are obese.

Overweight and obesity are measured with the Body Mass Index, which is a simple weight for height measurement that is used to classify how fat you are.

So if you are amongst the 1.9 billion overweight adults and you are looking to do something about it, then here area some simple weight loss tips that actually work.

WEAR A BELT

By wearing a belt and tightening it to your natural waistline, you will find that the belt may tend to feel tight after meals. Do not adjust it. The belt feeling tight is a sign that you need to stop eating and put down your utensils.

WEIGH YOURSELF DAILY

This has physiological effects on a person because you do not want to see the numbers on the scale increasing. So by taking your weight every day, you will find yourself taking smaller portions of food or being more active throughout the day, and end up keeping the weight off.

TAKE MORE FATS

This may sound counter intuitive but compared to carbohydrates, fat makes you feel full and keeps you feeling satisfied for longer, so you are less likely to overeat. So if you are feeling hungry about an hour after a meal, this is a sign that you do not have enough fat in your diet. So try and get more healthy fats which are found in nuts, avocados and fish such as salmon.

SHARE YOUR WEIGHT LOSS GOALS IN PUBLIC

By posting your weight loss goals onto social media and telling everyone about it, this will make you feel more motivated and accountable to achieve your targets, and so you are thus more likely to lose weight.

EAT MORE CHILLI

Chilli contains a component called capsaicin, which temporarily speeds up metabolism after ingestion, and thus helps you to burn calories at a faster rate. So why not add chilli to your food more often?

SLEEP WELL

If you are not sleeping well, you are more likely to feel hungrier and as a result, you will make unhealthy food choices. So if you make sure that up you get about seven to eight hours of quality sleep every night, this will help you to control your urges to snack on unhealthy foods such as candies and chocolate.

About the author:

Priscilla Chew is the winner of Best Health & Wellness Blog at the 2015 Singapore Blog Awards. Pris is Astavita’s sports ambassador. She attributes her stamina to cope with her running lifestyle with the help of Astavita’s Sports. She hopes her passion for running and sports will inspire other people to exercise on a regular basis for fitness and health. You may follow her on Instagram: prisgooner

So you have decided to do something about your fitness levels and you have signed up for a gym membership to take action.

But on your maiden visit to the gym, the first thing that you see are buff and toned guys and gals strutting their stuff.

Naturally you may feel self-conscious and clueless in front of them.

Trust me – I know exactly how that feels. I have been in the same situation before.

Here are some tips on how you can eliminate those nerves and feel more comfortable about your first trip to the gym.

1) Join A Class

If you don’t really know what to do at the gym, signing on for a class is a great way to begin. This will get you familiar with how the gym works and you can learn a few exercises while you are at it, too.As well, doing a class may even help you to meet new fitness kakis, whom you can then jio for future gym sessions.

2) Find Workout Buddies

Having workout buddies will help you at the gym, as you can motivate each other, and as a result, you’ll find yourself looking more forward to your gym sessions.

It will help if your buddy is of a similar fitness level to you, too, in order to build your confidence at the gym.

Personally, I have found that having workout buddies definitely helps me to stay more driven to keep up with my fitness sessions, as we hold each other accountable to turn up for the session and then to get the workout done.

3) Get A Trainer

If you need some guidance at the gym, another great way to do so would be to get a personal trainer, who will help you feel comfortable during your time at the gym.

And as well, he or she will also prescribe you with some exercises to do, based on your current fitness levels. This should help you to build some gym confidence also.

4) Have A Plan

Knowing what to do before you set foot in the gym will definitely help you to figure out what to do when you get there.

For example, do you want to do cardio or are you going to head for the strength training equipment?
This will help you to narrow down the type of equipment that you want to use, so that you can head straight there purposefully and confidently.

The last thing you want is to enter the gym and then find yourself walking around aimlessly, uncertain of how to progress.

For me, I always make sure that I have a plan when I head out for my workouts, and this helps me to make the most of the time that I have available to me, in addition to getting my workouts done purposefully and with a goal in mind.

If you are new to strength training, I would suggest that you begin with body weight exercises such as squats and lunges, rather than plumping straight for the weights – and making a fool of yourself in the process.

Conclusion

Now, with these tips in mind, I wish you good luck for your fitness journey ahead and I hope that these tips will help you to feel more purposeful, driven and confident at the gym.

About the author:

Priscilla Chew is the winner of Best Health & Wellness Blog at the 2015 Singapore Blog Awards. Pris is Astavita’s sports ambassador. She attributes her stamina to cope with her running lifestyle with the help of Astavita’s Sports. She hopes her passion for running and sports will inspire other people to exercise on a regular basis for fitness and health. You may follow her on Instagram: prisgooner

You may have a regular exercise routine and a healthy diet, but somehow you are finding that the weight is still not going down.

Here are some simple habits that you can include into your daily routine to increase your rate of fat burn. If you are trying to lose that stubborn 1kg that’s left to get to your ideal weight, then the incorporation of the habits below, into your daily routine, may just be the solution that you might need.

1) Keep Moving Around

By simply moving around – doing movements such as tapping your feet, constantly changing your sitting position or standing and walking around every hour, or even stretching on a regular basis – you will be expending more energy than someone who simply sits still like a log, and therefore will be burning more calories at the same time.

2) Sleep More

By sleeping more, this helps to suppress those cravings for midnight snacks. From my personal experiences, I have found that when I get regular sleep, my body is less likely to crave for sugary snacks at odd hours. But when I am lacking sleep, my body wants that instant sugar boost, so it starts to hanker for sweet or sugary things at weird times of the day. Try to get about eight hours a night – that is the recommended amount of sleep for an adult.

3) Expose yourself to the cold

Try not to wear that sweater next time you are in a cold movie theatre or chilly environment if you want to burn more calories.

Personally I find this to be true from my own experiences. When I am in a cold environment, I tend to get more hungry as compared to when I am somewhere warm. This is a sign that my body is burning more calories when I am cold.

4) Laugh More

Have you ever wondered why you feel as though you need to catch your breath after a laughing fit? I have certainly felt this way – after a few minutes of laughing fit, the feeling that I get is similar to the feeling after completing high intensity exercises for about five minutes. This is a sign that laughing is burning calories. So why not simply do a lot of laughing during the day?

Grinning when you next use the bathroom scale

As you can see, these are quite easy tips to follow, and might just mean the difference between successfully losing that 1kg or 2kg of stubborn fat to reach your goal weight. For a healthy adult, including these fat burn habits into your daily routine, could be the difference between gradual weight gain versus weight maintenance.

So why not try some of these tips, and you will be grinning widely when you stand on the bathroom scale next time.

About the author:

Priscilla Chew is the winner of Best Health & Wellness Blog at the 2015 Singapore Blog Awards. Pris is Astavita’s sports ambassador. She attributes her stamina to cope with her running lifestyle with the help of Astavita’s Sports. She hopes her passion for running and sports will inspire other people to exercise on a regular basis for fitness and health. You may follow her on Instagram: prisgooner

With 9am-5pm office jobs which require us to simply click noise buttons and tap on keyboards, more and more people these days are becoming sedentary and sadly, this is fast becoming the norm, in today’s highly connected world where everything is easily accessible.We are meant to move

But the human body is not meant to be sedentary. The body is meant to move. After all, human beings started out as cavemen, hunters and gatherers, fighting for their survival and relying on their instincts to stay alive.

Sadly though, the rapid development of technology has changed all that, and we, as humans, no longer need movement as a means to stay alive, because everything is now available to us so easily.

You can change that though, by changing your mindset and re-thinking about the reasons why you should move, that might help.

Exercise is a gift, not a chore

Do not think of exercise as a chore. Instead, think of it as a gift that you are able to do.

There are many people out there who would love to run or climb, but for instance, due to physical or mental disabilities or deformities, they are not able to.

Yet you have the ability to move your body every day and you have the power to control your body to do what you want it to do.

And by moving your body, it also exercises the mind, too, for example, when we run, we get a boost of endorphins and over time, regular movement, or exercise, translates into a boost of self-confidence, improvement of muscle tone or weight maintenance.

Choose something you enjoy

When you are picking a type of exercise, make sure that it is one you enjoy. For instance, if you don’t like running, don’t force yourself to run because all of your friends are doing it. There are many other forms of movement out there, such as walking, yoga or dancing.

If the workout happens to be something that you like, you are more likely to stick to it, rather than dragging yourself to do it each time. If it’s the latter, you are more likely to give up on your exercise regime.

Too much of a good thing can turn bad

However too much of a good thing can become bad though. Even if you exercise daily, the moment that you know that something is not right, for example, aches and pains happening in places where they should not be, these are signals that are being sent to your body that something is wrong.

So when this happens, see a doctor or try to dial back on the intensity of your exercise routine, such as taking it easy even though your training schedule says that you are meant to be doing a hard workout session that day.

About the author:

Priscilla Chew is the winner of Best Health & Wellness Blog at the 2015 Singapore Blog Awards. Pris is Astavita’s sports ambassador. She attributes her stamina to cope with her running lifestyle with the help of Astavita’s Sports. She hopes her passion for running and sports will inspire other people to exercise on a regular basis for fitness and health. You may follow her on Instagram: prisgooner

Everyone can cycle. It is a life skill that we are all taught usually when we are children. But it takes effort to go from casual cycling to a race and even to take part in a triathlon. You need to change your mind set about cycling. Here are some quick tips for you to gear up for the bike leg of the triathlon.

Buy a bike

If you need the motivation to train for a triathlon, investing in an entry-level road bike would be a good place to start. A second-hand one would be good enough if you don’t feel the need to get a brand new one. As well, having a bike at home will give you the incentive to get out there and train, as compared to borrowing one.

A triathlon bike is not necessary unless you are keen to take part in triathlons on a regular basis. These bikes are expensive and probably not advisable to invest in for those who are unsure if they want to commit to this sport for the long term.

Increase the frequency of your rides

If you have been cycling casually once a week all this while, you will need to increase the routine to two or three times a week; if you have a triathlon on the cards. This will give you the chance to do longer bike workouts and at the same time, increase the intensity of your bike rides.

Vary your efforts

As a casual cyclist, you will probably be used to easy riding along the park connectors or flat paths. When training for a triathlon, you will need to incorporate these easy rides too, into your training, but at the same time, you must include hard ones as well, and introduce some hill training into your bike rides, in order to build some strength in your legs.

Bike Handling Skills

As a triathlete, you will need to improve your bike handling skills too. Bike handling skills include being able to shift gears quickly, descend downhill and navigate corners. Try to join a triathlon club and watch how the more experienced riders do it so you can learn from them. You must also learn how to change a flat tyre, as this skill may come in useful one day.

There you have it! Four top most important factors to consider if you’re serious to go the whole nine yards into doing a full triathlon. Till the next post, keep training.

About the author:

Priscilla Chew is the winner of Best Health & Wellness Blog at the 2015 Singapore Blog Awards. Pris is Astavita’s sports ambassador. She attributes her stamina to cope with her running lifestyle with the help of Astavita’s Sports. She hopes her passion for running and sports will inspire other people to exercise on a regular basis for fitness and health. You may follow her on Instagram: prisgooner

How performance and recovery are of utmost importance for sustaining an active lifestyle

Most student athletes understand the demand placed on having to focus on both academics and juggling training throughout the semester. We train before class, in between class, and after class. Wake up, eat, study, train, sleep, repeat. Yup that’s the life of a student athlete. Honestly being in university is the best time for us to enjoy and excel as athletes before adulting gets to us.

Being a student athlete majoring in sport and exercise science, are two things that really come in hand in hand. Not only did I develop an understanding of the human responses to sport and exercise but I could AND should actually apply this knowledge to how my own performance and recovery can be monitored, analysed and enhanced so that every training that I put myself through is fully optimized. I was kind of like my own guinea pig, putting to practice what I learned on myself.

As we all know, completion of every training session leads to an increase in numerous physiological stressors such as muscle damage, oxidative stress and inflammation. If recovery is inadequate following exercise, it may prevent completion of subsequent training sessions required to drive adaptation and/or improve performance. Inadequate recovery may also increase risks of injury, illness and overtraining. Hence any strategy to reduce the negative effect of exercise-induced muscle damage and/or accelerate the recovery process is greatly welcome for any athlete.

Exercise performance and recovery are two very important factors for all athletes, recreational or elite. With the help of Astavita Sports, a supplement containing AstaReal® astaxanthin, I feel that this year I’ve been able to enhance performance through the benefit of delayed onset of fatigue, really helping me in my endurance sports. Furthermore, what I found even more beneficial was the effect it had on recovery for me. Having gotten into triathlons recently while still pursuing my passion for sport climbing meant that I was juggling four different sports (climbing, swimming, cycling and running.) Most days required a double session of training. One in the morning and one in the evening just to be able to train sufficiently for all four sports. This can sound really exhausting but I grew to love triathlons as much as climbing and I didn’t want to give up either sport, so that just meant I had to manage both of them well.

Lynnette Koh is a sport climber and an aspiring triathlete. Despite a bad fall which resulted in a spinal fracture, she never gave up her love for sports and got up even stronger than before. She believes that the “impossible can be possible” and enjoys challenging herself. Lynnette consumes Astavita Sports to help her improve recovery from muscle fatigue. You may follow her on Instagram: @lynnettekoh

If you are taking part in any Triathlon event, your training should be done and dusted two weeks before the race day. But if you haven’t trained as well as you should, there is nothing that you can really do at this late stage to change your fitness levels.

But what you can do, is to control some key factors to help you reach the finish line in as best a shape as you possibly can.

Here are some last-minute tips.

Equipment

Before the race, make sure all your equipment is in good working order. For example, make sure that your goggles are not leaking and that you can see clearly in them.

For your bike, make sure that the bike gears are working well and that the tyres are in good shape. Remember to pump your tyres the night before.
For the run leg, use a pair of tried and tested shoes that you know you can run well with; never try out those fancy new shoes that you bought recently at the race pack expo.

And once you have checked that your equipment is all good, remember to pack everything you need, the night before the race; you don’t want to be rummaging around your room in the dark, trying to locate things on race morning – this is a sure way to forget something that may be important for your race.

Diet

Drink plenty of fluids the day before the race. On the morning of the event, make sure you eat a light breakfast you are comfortable with and your body can digest easily. This can be cereals with soya milk, or toast if you are more used to that.

Avoid trying out any of those newfangled breakfast sets from those fancy cafes you have been eyeing for the past few months. Why not wait till after the race to explore any new food instead.

Race Pace Strategy

Know your pace and do not start out too fast. Many triathletes, both novices and experienced ones, tend to go out too fast at the swim and the bike leg, leaving no energy left for the run leg. The longer the distance that you are taking on, the more you need to bear this in mind, otherwise, you’ll be left literally ‘running on empty’ by the run leg. A better strategy I recommend would be to start slower, with the aim of conserving some energy left to still finish the race strong.

Lastly, stay mindful and focused, listen to your body. Do not let the hype and adrenaline of the race get to you such that you start following the pace of the crowd at the expense of your own stamina. Well, that’s it, till the next post, keep training.

About the author:

Priscilla Chew is the winner of Best Health & Wellness Blog at the 2015 Singapore Blog Awards. Pris is Astavita’s sports ambassador. She attributes her stamina to cope with her running lifestyle with the help of Astavita’s Sports. She hopes her passion for running and sports will inspire other people to exercise on a regular basis for fitness and health. You may follow her on Instagram: prisgooner

When it comes to getting healthier and fitter and shedding those unwanted kilos, we all have good intentions at the beginning.

But despite our good intentions and our efforts to exercise, there may be some mistakes that we are making, that could be sabotaging our fitness targets. Whether you may be aware or not that you are making these mistakes, they will, no doubt, set you back in terms of achieving your fitness goals.

Here are some common ones, that could be sabotaging your fitness efforts.

Not Exercising Enough

While it is good to sign up for a gym membership or try to incorporate a regular fitness regime into their lives, it is not enough to work out once or twice a week.

Signing up for a gym membership is usually the first step, but after that, many people forget that they need to put in the time step into the gym to to exercise after that.

Instead, to maintain your fitness, you need to exercise at least half an hour, five days a week. Whether it is a gym class or a cardio workout, that is your pick.

Skipping Meals

Many people think that by skipping meals, they will lose weight because they are eating less. But instead, this has the opposite effect. This is because skipping meals means that you are depriving the body of nutrients and this in turn, leads you to feel hungry so you may indulge in binge-eating.

So instead of skipping meals, try and make better food choices and you will feel much better about yourself, for example, choose a piece of fruit or a handful of nuts, instead of that bag of potato chips for your mid-afternoon snack.

Lack of Sleep

A lack of sleep may lead to obesity and getting fat. This is because quite often, those who do not have enough rest will be too tired to exercise during the day. And when we lack the energy, our metabolism will slow, because our bodies are trying to conserve calories.

Sleep-deprived people will also tend to eat more each day, because they are awake for more hours and therefore have more chances to eat. As well, by lacking sleep too, this has an effect on hormones that stimulate appetite; as a result, by not sleeping enough, your hunger hormones will work overtime and you are therefore more likely to wind up binge-eating.

To summarise, nobody is perfect, and if you find that you are not losing weight or getting fit despite your efforts, then the above reasons could be some of the causes. Look into your fitness routine, and make some adjustments. You may feel fitter eventually.

About the author:

Priscilla Chew is the winner of Best Health & Wellness Blog at the 2015 Singapore Blog Awards. Pris is Astavita’s sports ambassador. She attributes her stamina to cope with her running lifestyle with the help of Astavita’s Sports. She hopes her passion for running and sports will inspire other people to exercise on a regular basis for fitness and health. You may follow her on Instagram: prisgooner

To train for a race, many triathletes focus hard on their swimming, biking and running. But many of them tend to neglect thinking about the transitions and usually do not worry about these till race day.

But the transitions too, are an important part of your entire triathlon experience and this can be the key difference between whether you get a personal best overall timing or not.

Pack your bags the night before

Do not wait till race morning to pack your stuff. Regardless of whether you are a newbie or an experienced triathlete, everyone forgets things. Even though you know what you need, something will surely slip your mind if you are packing at the last minute. The worst scenario, is realising that something important is still at home, when you get to the race site.

So make a checklist several days before the race and make sure that you pack everything the night before. Go through the checklist once again in the morning to ensure that you have not forgotten out on anything, and then you will be good to go.

Bring as little things as possible

Golden packing rule: Just keep to your essentials!

For example, there is no need to bring three clothing changes as well as that underwater GoPro camera that you can’t wait to show off to everyone. This may be exaggerating, but it makes the point: Just bring the bare minimum that will get you through the race in one piece.

Turn up early

It is important to get to the race early to get a good spot in the transition pen and stake your claim to your space. You will need somewhere to rack your bike and lay out your transition items below it.

The last thing you want to do, is to swagger in like a VIP less than 20 minutes before the start of your wave and start demanding that other people move their things and make space for you. This will not only irritate others, but will also leave you in a panicked state, if you can’t set up your things in time.

As well, if you find yourself having to toss your things in a messy pile on the ground simply because you were late in arriving to the race site, this will make the transitions harder, as you will waste precious time sorting everything out – don’t forget that the transition times count as part of your race time too.

Count the number of rows

You should count the number of rows between the swim exit and the bike entrance when you are making your way out of the transition pen for the first time. This will help you when you are coming out of the water in a disoriented state and are panicking to get onto the bike as quickly as possible.

There you have it, these tips will leave you in a good state. A smooth, quick transition can make a big difference in a race that comes down to the wire. Hence, do bear in mind these tips.

About the author:

Priscilla Chew is the winner of Best Health & Wellness Blog at the 2015 Singapore Blog Awards. Pris is Astavita’s sports ambassador. She attributes her stamina to cope with her running lifestyle with the help of Astavita’s Sports. She hopes her passion for running and sports will inspire other people to exercise on a regular basis for fitness and health. You may follow her on Instagram: prisgooner